Because a lost little girl from Cairo thought she was living in some sort of fairy tale. And because for all her supposed cleverness, she couldn’t see that the dashing hero who saved her was its monster.

If The City of Brass set us off on an adventure; The Kingdom of Copper vastly expands the world–and the stakes.

The city of Daevabad is a mess. Nahri’s life is a mess. Ali’s exile is a mess. Dara is dead–but what else is new?–and also a mess.

This is a book about war and violence and family squabbles writ kingdom large. We’re truly in the magical world now, and oh there’s far more depths to that world that we knew.

Of all the middle books of a trilogy out there, few do quite so well as this one. It’s still got some middle book issues–it doesn’t really stand alone–but for what it is, I’m quite impressed.

I’m so looking forward to finishing this one. I fully expect even more and worse messes before (if) everything is wrapped up.

Onward!

“No, I wasn’t afraid. I was tired." Ali’s voice broke on the word. “I’m tired of everyone in this city feeding on vengeance. I’m tired of teaching our children to hate and fear other children because their parents are our enemies. And I’m sick and tired of acting like the only way to save our people is to cut down all who might oppose us, as if our enemies won’t return the favor the instant power shifts.

I’ve got a theory… it could be bunnies.

“We never joke about bunnies, Bunny.”

Man, that is quite a book.

It’s part college experience–and not just any college experience, but one at a super small liberal arts school, focusing on writing and poetry and all that… to a degree that I (engineering school) couldn’t even tell you for sure if it’s satire or just how that works.

It’s part a story about loneliness and fitting in–which ties in well with the college experience. About seeing the ‘popular girls’, first from the outside, and then all too intimately.

And of course (not that I knew this going into it; figured it out pretty quick though), it’s part horror story. It’s a slow burning thrilling, but there’s more than a bit of the surreal and body horror bits of the genre.

All together, it’s an intense sort of read, sort of like a car crash, but in a good way. (Yeah. I know.)

It takes a while to get going, slowly getting more and more… off. And then everything skids hard to one side. You just can’t look away. You have to see what happens next.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience.

I think.

Certainly not a book for everyone, but there are more than a few that I expect would get a (bunny?) kick out of it.

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Its substance was known to me. The crawling infinity of colours, the chaos of textures that went into each strand of that eternally complex tapestry…each one resonated under the step of the dancing mad god, vibrating and sending little echoes of bravery, or hunger, or architecture, or argument, or cabbage or murder or concrete across the aether. The weft of starlings’ motivations connected to the thick, sticky strand of a young thief’s laugh. The fibres stretched taut and glued themselves solidly to a third line, its silk made from the angles of seven flying buttresses to a cathedral roof. The plait disappeared into the enormity of possible spaces.

Any time you ask about modern ‘weird fiction’ / weird ecologies / weird cities. China Miéville and Perdido Street Station almost always come up. Turns out… that’s for a good reason. Why in the world did I take so long to read this book?

Overall, this book really shines when it comes to weird¹ worldbuilding. Half-bird, half-human creature? Not that weird. Half-bug creatures? Where the women have a scarab beetle instead of ahead and the males are non-sapient grubs? Weird. Frog people? Re-animates and constructs? Plant people? All living together in a grimy steam-powered, airship and tech and magic driven mess of a metropolis?

Weird¹.

And wonderful.

Overall, this was exactly the sort of book that I love and I’m glad to see there are other books in the same world, if not with the same characters. I want more!

Conversely, if you’re not into weird fiction, more than a touch of body horror, or a book where everyone necessarily get a happy ending (or even survive the story)… maybe skip this one. It’s dark. And that’s sort of the point.

Side note: I listened to this on audiobook and I loved the narration. Perhaps my favorite thing? Whenever the narrator said Issac’s full name. Grimnebulin! 😄

Art is something you choose to make… it’s a bringing together of… of everything around you into something that makes you more human, more khepri, whatever. More of a person.

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Nature forms patterns. Some are orderly in space but disorderly in time, others orderly in time but disorderly in space. Some patterns are fractal, exhibiting structures self-similar in scale. Others give rise to steady states or oscillating ones. Pattern formation has become a branch of physics and of materials science, allowing scientists to model the aggregation of particles into clusters, the fractured spread of electrical discharges, and the growth of crystals in ice and metal alloys. The dynamics seem so basic—shapes changing in space and time—yet only now are the tools available to understand them.

Chaos is the study of non-linear systems. Of fractals. Of … chaos. It takes the world we know it and proves that, at some level, we don’t know anything. We can simulate the world to ever increasing levels of accuracy and at some point, things just blow up.

It’s a neat idea, not nearly as weird as it was 40 years ago when this was written (and even then, three years before Jurassic Park made it really cool). I’ve messed with fractals more than a bit and studied quite a bit of higher level math in school, so little of this is particularly new to me–so I’m probably ont the target audience.

Overall, this book is really more about the history and discovery of chaos, rather than necessarily digging into the math and how it really works (when we even know). It’s interesting, but not what I was expecting.

So… I’m glad enough that I read it, but probably wouldn’t strongly recommended it. So it goes.

As someone quickly approaching 40 with a penchant for urban fantasy, this book should have been right up my alley. Except… the plot is weak, the world building is lazy, and the romance doesn’t really make sense.

I think the book sums itself up well.

“Oh God, Daisy,” ***** said, letting her head fall to her chest. “You have it all wrong.”

“Have what wrong?” I asked as a feeling of dread washed over me.

“Every good story has a major plot twist,” she said slowly, growing more agitated with each word.

This is on page 155 of 164. Daisy (our MC) is finally finally learning… and still got it wrong. And it’s not even (in my opinion) that sensible a plot twist. And then the book ends. It’s very much set up for a sequel; without which, it doesn’t really stand alone.

So… despite this being an oddly well reviewed book in general, it’s just really not my cup of tea. Perhaps you’d like it more. Perhaps it gets better.

Onward.

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And so it ends… 50 years later.

This is an interesting one. Apparently, it was largely written by the original author’s daughter with the first story an unpublished original and the rest based on ’notes among her mother’s possessions’. For the most part, it fits. And ending it all with a party celebrating the titular Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle?

I like it.

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Somehow, Mrs. Piggle-Returned. And the complete lack of any mention of her farm is just about as weird as when Star Wars did it. Add to that another complete reliance on random magical pills and powders… this one is also not my favorite, although I prefer it slightly to [[Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic]].

See Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle for my thoughts for the series as a whole.

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My thoughts for the series as a whole are on the review for Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.

For … reasons, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle has moved out of town to a farm. Here, she takes the problem children and uses (farm style) household chores in order to help them be better.

It actually really works–and is so much less likely than [[Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic]]. I think this might actually be my favorite. It’s weird, writing this out, to realize how relatively few stories this one had though.

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My thoughts for the series as a whole are on the review for Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Really, if I’d only read that book and this one, I don’t know if I would have continued the series.

In the first, we have fairly mundane and reasonable solutions to realistic childhood issues. In this one–straight out magic. I’m not a huge fan, especially with the tonal shift. But I do really like Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm and (perhaps surprisingly) Happy Birthday, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, so I’m glad I continued.

That being said, this one does have some fun moments (the Tattletales, Lester the pig with his table manners), so it’s not all bad!

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The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books are an interesting sort of children’s tales. Throughout the books, we’re introduced to familys with strange names, where always and without fail, the children are in some way, shape, or form misbehaving. One thing leads to another, their mother¹ is at her wit’s end, and… they call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and she saves the day.

Originally published 1947-1957, the first four books are very much a product of their times. The family dynamics, the problems the children have, and even some of the (less magical) solutions. Yet a lot of the problems ring true, even today.

We’ve been listening to the 4 of the 5 books we’ve found audiobooks for in a somewhat random order. Mostly, the order doesn’t matter. Each story is fairly self contained–with the exception of book 3: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s farm, in which she’s moved out of town. Except in book 4, she’s back and no mention is made ever again. Anyways.

The last, published in book 5, actually fits fairly well with the first 4, despite the fact that it was published 50 years later by MacDonald’s daughter. Honestly, on just listening to them, it didn’t feel all that different.

I think the main decider on if I’d like a particular story or not depended entirely on how magical the solution was. While they’re all somewhat unbelievable (a day or two staying up late curing a TV addiction? sure), I like the ones with a practical solution. In particular, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (1), her Farm (3), and Happy Birthday (5) are my favorites. Conversely, her Magic (2) and Hello (4) are much more about magical pills and tonics that miraculously solve problems–not particularly applicable that, even if they are fun to read about.

Overall, they’re a lot of fun to read/listen to and I don’t expect they’ll go away any time soon.

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